CANADIAN NOVELS FOR SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND HISTORIANS

Most discussions about the impact of Afghanistan on the future of NATO focus on transatlantic relations between the United States and the European Union. But for Canada, which is one of the few NATO allies that voluntarily deployed into the south, facing heavy resistance and fighting from Taliban insurgents, the Afghanistan operations have become the most salient dimension of its continued involvement in the Atlantic Alliance. While this may seem surprising, given the cutbacks in Canadian defense spending in the 1990s and the withdrawal of Canada's standing forces from Germany, it should not. For during that so-called dark decade, Canada continued to make major contributions to NATO and European security. This essay argues that Ottawa's multi-faceted military and political support of the “new” NATO of the post–Cold War era continued when the alliance undertook its involvement in Afghanistan. Indeed, in its efforts in support of NATO's mission in Afghanistan, Canada has demonstrated a dedication to the alliance that seems stronger than NATO's collective commitment to itself.     

PLAIN POTTERY AND SOCIAL LANDSCAPES: REINTERPRETING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CERAMIC PROVENANCE IN THE NEOLITHIC

This paper focuses on plain, stylistically unvaried pottery from three Late Neolithic sites from the Mondego Plateau, Portugal, and investigates ceramic production and exchange among small‐scale prehistoric societies by means of thin‐section petrography and chemical analysis (INAA). The results show that the majority of the pottery was made with widely available, granite‐derived sedimentary clays, but petrographic differences between fabrics indicate collection at multiple locations within these deposits. Variation in chemical composition is consistent with site‐specific sourcing areas, while comparison with data from earlier sites in the Mondego and surrounding mountains suggests that such sources were geographically restricted within the plateau. In contrast, the small percentage of vessels produced with residual clays of metamorphic and intermediate igneous origin, which outcrop over 10 km and 30 km from the archaeological sites, demonstrates that plain pottery did circulate during the Neolithic beyond the funerary sphere. This is the product of the routines of mobility and social networks of Neolithic groups across the wider landscape, which involved the exchange of ‘mundane’ vessels. Finally, the study demonstrates that micro‐regional provenance studies can provide significant insights into prehistoric social landscapes if the data are interrogated beyond simplistic classifications of local and non‐local.     

IDEOLOGY AND URBAN LANDSCAPES: CONCEPTIONS OF THE MARKET IN PORTLAND,MAINE*

This paper concerns the role of ideology in the operation of urban land and housing markets. We argue that existing work in this area tends to be overly abstract and to reify ideology. To correct this, we advocate examining understandings of particular land and housing markets. We focus on Portland, Maine, and analyze discourses on the uneven costs of social development, inner-city redevelopment, a recent decline in the regional economy and Portland's place in that economy. Traditional pro-market interpretations dominate, but we also identify more politicized understandings - many of which are also pro-market. They are applied very selectively, for example to explain a crisis but not a boom. We conclude that politicized conceptions of market operations are not necessarily radical and may in fact be crucial to the survival of capitalism.     

LABOUR AND LANDSCAPES: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LANDESQUE CAPITAL IN NINETEENTH CENTURY TANGANYIKA

In a long‐term and global perspective irrigated and terraced landscapes, landesque capital, have often been assumed to be closely associated with hierarchical political systems. However, research is accumulating that shows how kinship‐based societies (including small chiefdoms) have also been responsible for constructing landesque capital without population pressure. We examine the political economy of landesque capital through the intersections of decentralized politics and regional economies. A crucial question guiding our research is why some kinship‐based societies chose to invest their labour in landesque capital while others did not. Our analysis is based on a detailed examination of four relatively densely populated communities in late pre‐colonial and early colonial Tanzania. By analysing labour processes as contingent and separate from political types of generalized economic systems over time we can identify the causal factors that direct labour and thus landscape formation as a process. The general conclusion of our investigation is that landesque investments occurred in cases where agriculture was the main source of long‐term wealth flow irrespective of whether or not hierarchical political systems were present. However, while this factor may be a necessary condition it is not a sufficient cause. In the cases we examined, the configurations of world‐systems connections and local social and economic circumstances combined to either produce investments in landesque capital or to pursue short‐term strategies of extraction.     

KINSHIP AND SOCIETY IN THE UKRAINIAN PIONEER SETTLEMENT OF THE CANADIAN WEST

The geography and internal structure of Ukrainian block settlements in western Canada illustrate the strength of social ties transferred from the homeland. Settlements were structured according to kinship, village, district, provincial, and national loyalties. In this respect the internal geography of Ukrainian block settlements in Canada replicated that of the western Ukraine in microcosm. Although Settlement within a familiar social- cultural milieu offered many advantages for the immigrant, the ultimate result was not always beneficial, since a determination to pursue social advantage in settlement led to the occupation of much agriculturally marginal land.
La géographie et la structure interne des implantations en masse des Ukrainiens dans l' ouest du Canada montrent la force des liens sociaux transmis du pays ď origine. Ces implantations furent structurées en fonction d'affinityés provenant de liens soit de parenté ou de loyauté qui existaient à des niveaux diffgrents, tel que dans le village, ou dans le quartier, au même en province ou dans des coins lointains du pays. A cet égard, la géographie interne de ce type d'implantation au Canada fut la réplique en microcosme de celle de l' ouest de l' Ukraine. Bien que l' implantation au sein d'un milieu socio-culturel connu ait offert beaucoup d'avantages à l' immigrant, le résultat final n'a pas toujours étéà son avantage, surtout lorsque la détermination de maintenir ces liens sociaux mena à l' occupation de nombreuses terres qui étaient faibles en rendements agricoles.     

中国古代园林设计中的自然理想观

自然地理环境早先与现代都对人文传统的景观有很大影响。中国古代风景园林发源于自然生态环境的审美选择,进而以顺乎自然的设计指导思想求得"虽由人作,宛自天开"的审美标准,更有人与自然相与融洽的审美理想。西方古典园林中人造的几何规则景观超越于一切自然。在现代中国盲目模仿西方城市摩天大楼景观的时候,现代西方城市规划学者正致力于研究中国古代先哲的思想精髓和古代文化遗产,为塑造现代人居环境的自然协调寻找新的灵感启迪。     

PERCEIVING COMMUNITIES: EXCHANGE, LANDSCAPES AND SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE LATER IRON AGE OF WESTERN BRITAIN

Summary.   In recent years British Iron Age studies have focused on regionality whilst critiquing the hierarchical model of Iron Age society. Despite the success of these approaches there has been little detailed replacement of previous social models with an understanding of how Iron Age societies worked. Looking at the later Iron Age of western Britain this paper combines examination of the exchange of material culture alongside study of the landscape to explore the nature of Iron Age communities. It is argued that Iron Age societies in the region used material culture to construct and maintain social relationships, while using visual landscape references allowed groups to engage in larger perceived communities.     

DEATHSCAPE: MALCOLM LOWRY'S TOPOPHOBIC VIEW OF THE CITY

Intellectuals tend toward a negative view of the modern city, whereas literary works express more ambivalent feelings. The novelist Malcolm Lowry's vision of the North American city, however, is purely topophobic, and six levels of topophobia are evident. In ascending order of disquietude, cities are regarded as placeless, as sources of sensory overload, as fundamentally inorganic (the aesthetico-sensory dimension) and as symbols of evil, as predators, and ultimately as the agents of civilization, the creator of deathscapes (the symbolic dimension ).
Les intellectuels ont tendance à avoir une vision négative de la ville dans le monde moderne, tandis que les oeuvres littéraires démontrent des sentiments plus ambivalents. La vision des villes nord-américaines qu'entretient le romancier Malcolm Lowry est purement 'topophobique,' avec six niveaux de 'topophobie.' Par ordre ascendant de malaises, les villes resortent comme dépourvues de lieux, comme étant des sources de surcharge sensorielle, comme fondamentalement inorganiques (la dimension esthético-sensorielle), et comme étant des symboles de malheur, comme prédatrices, et finalement, comme agents de la civilisation créatrice de paysages de mort (la dimension symbolique).     

神话与宗教中理想景观的文化地理透视

神话与宗教是原始的哲学和宇宙观,理想景观是其中一个重要组成部分。根据文化圈的不同,世界神话与宗教可划分为三种地域类型:中国式、希腊式和希伯莱式。它们各有其不同的理想景观类型。理想景观是人们对于环境的选择和改造,它的形成受自然环境和文化的双重作用,其中自然环境的作用是潜在的、基础性的,而文化的作用是直接的和本质性的。不同的文化通过神话和宗教中的理想景观类型来表达自己的景观理想,又依据这些理想,通过地理回归在现实中使其物化,实现对地理环境的影响。